Cesar Chavez was a Mexican American civil rights and labor leader who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962, which later became the United Farm Workers union. He led nonviolent protests to increase wages and improve working conditions for migrant farm workers, organizing strikes and boycotts of grapes and lettuce. Chavez fought for equal treatment and justice for farmworkers through nonviolent civil disobedience and is remembered today as an important figure in the American labor movement and the Chicano civil rights movement.